Lawmakers suggest AI monitoring to protect children, create jobs for vulnerable groups

Lawmakers held a policy seminar Tuesday to explore how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to protect children and teenagers from harmful online content while creating jobs for people with disabilities and older adults.

Reps. Park Ji-won and Seo Mi-hwa of the Democratic Party of Korea co-hosted the seminar at the National Assembly Library in Seoul. The event focused on using AI to detect harmful content, including deepfake sex crimes, online grooming and illegal gambling, while leaving the final assessment to human reviewers.

Under the proposed model, AI agents would monitor and analyze online content around the clock and flag potentially harmful material for human review. Organizers said the approach could address the limits of labor-intensive monitoring while creating remote and flexible jobs for people who have faced barriers to entering the workforce.

“Having AI first detect and analyze large amounts of data, with people with disabilities and older adults conducting the final review and making judgments, shows how technology can complement people’s abilities rather than replace them and create new jobs,” Park said during the seminar.

Seo said socially vulnerable groups should be given a more active role as AI becomes more widely used.

“People with disabilities, older adults and other vulnerable groups should not simply be seen as people who need protection in the digital age. They should also have a role in making the digital environment safer,” Seo said.

Choi Seung-hyun, head of AI developer DragonEyes, presented the company’s AI-based monitoring model at the seminar.

“Combining the roles of AI agents and people can both protect children and teenagers and create jobs for vulnerable groups,” Choi said. “Technology should be used not to replace people, but to enable more people to participate in society.”